{"id":834672,"date":"2025-08-12T11:47:31","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T09:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=834672"},"modified":"2025-08-12T11:48:25","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T09:48:25","slug":"unemployment-in-south-africa-jumps-past-33-as-jobs-crisis-deepens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/834672\/unemployment-in-south-africa-jumps-past-33-as-jobs-crisis-deepens\/","title":{"rendered":"Unemployment in South Africa jumps past 33% as jobs crisis deepens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) from Stats SA shows that South Africa’s unemployment rate has increased again, jumping to 33.2% in Q2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is up fromt he 32.9% recorded in the first quarter of 2025, which itself was higher than the 31.9% recorded in the quarter before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The QLFS for the second quarter of the year revealed that the country saw 159,000 more people enter the workforce between April and June 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, only 19,000 were employed over the period, and 140,000 were unemployed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discouraged work-seekers decreased by 28,000 (down by 0.8%), and the number of persons who were not economically active for reasons other than discouragement remained unchanged. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This resulted in the unemployment rate increasing by 0.3 percentage points to 33.2%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The expanded unemployment rate in the second quarter of 2025 decreased by 0.2 percentage points to 42.9% when compared with the first quarter of 2025, which was 43.1%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Stats SA, the number of persons employed in the formal sector increased by 34,000 in
Q2: 2025, and the informal sector employment decreased by 19,000 over the same period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The largest industry increases in employment were recorded in Trade (88,000), Private households (28,000) and Construction (20,000). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decreases in employment were recorded in Community and social services (42,000), Agriculture (24,000), Finance (24,000), Transport (15,000), Utilities (6,000) and Manufacturing (5,000).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results also indicate that the highest increases in employment were observed in Gauteng (95,000) and Eastern Cape (89,000), while decreases were observed in Western Cape (117,000), KwaZulu-Natal (86,000) and Northern Cape (28,000).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Changes coming<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Stats SA announced earlier this week that it will be revising and reviewing certain aspects of its surveys to better capture information around South Africa’s informal sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This followed engagements between minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, the Statistician-General, Risenga Maluleke, and senior representatives from National Treasury and former Capitec Bank CEO Gerrie\u202fFourie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fourie had previously raised issues around Stats SA’s coverage of the informal sector, questioning the overall unemployment figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He posited that the informal sector was widely undercounted, and the unemployment in South Africa was likely closer to 10% than the near 33% put forward by Stats SA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Stats SA has defended its published data and methodology, it said that it is open to exploring the development of a statistical register for small-scale and informal businesses, which he said would strengthen the quality and granularity of labour market data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To this end, it said that it is now evaluating additional statistical tools, including a register for informal enterprises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If implemented, this register will complement the QLFS and serve as a valuable sampling frame for improved labour market analysis, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the latest data, the informal sector (non-agricultural) was recorded at about 3.3 million people, or roughly 20% of total employment in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stats SA’s data maintains that the formal sector remains the largest contributor to total employment in South Africa, while private households and agriculture make up the balance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One third of South Africa’s workforce is sitting without a job, with Stats SA’s latest QLFS showing the national unemployment rate increasing once again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":812429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,1],"tags":[1809,3651],"class_list":["post-834672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-trending","tag-stats-sa","tag-unemployment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=834672"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":834680,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834672\/revisions\/834680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=834672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=834672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=834672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}